Whats your opinion on British Wrestling?

[spurs 4 life]

I honestly believe there is no chance of British wrestling getting on a serious TV programme again. Not while WWE is still active. Why would BBC, ITV etc want to show an inferior product to something being shown on Sky Sports? It's not going to happen.

 

Exactly.

 

As I said unless someone comes along and is prepared to throw money at tv studios and production which might get a pilot picked up all these ideas won't ever amount to much for the reasons you have said.

[Kiffy]

That's a bit of a fallacy to be fair, you could say why show minor league boxing when sky box office are showing heavy weight title fights live from vegas. The fact someone's doing it bigger and better doesn't mean a lesser show can't be picked up, that's why tna's shown over here, and why wwe ecw was shown over here.

To actually answer the question, it's a bit of a catch 22 but you need a regular show, regularly drawing a decent very vocal crowd. FWA came close to it, but lack of shows and a down turn in quality meant they couldn't maintain it. Once you can repeatedly show that product to people in television, you have to convince them they can get the content, and they'll make a decent profit once you factor in advertising.

It doesn't matter that wwe do it better, all that matters is it being profitable for a tv station and convincing them of that. From that you can continue to grow.

But that first step, creating this brand and following that'll manage that, and doing it long enough to be in a position to negotiate to sell it for years (if that's how long it takes) without it dying in the meantime. That's the killer.

[Super Cena]

I've often wondered why somebody doesn't knock some older footage together of a promotion that has already ran shows and make it into a year-long series. For instance, surely it would be cheaper to try and make a deal with ROH/PWG or whoever and edit/re-do commentary than start a fresh with an upstart.

 

For example, by enough footage from ROH shows that ran in 2007 (or whenever McGuinness was champion) that would be able to be edited down into an hour long weekly show that could be shown on British TV. This would be a perfect way to judge how the UK television audience would react to a non-WWE/TNA promotion.

 

If the viewing figures/potential was high enough by the year's end, I'm sure that they'd then be able to get the backing to create a new promotion.

[Kiffy]

That'd be a fine test for getting the product out there, but I don't think it would work in getting investment for a new promotion. There's too many variables involved as the new product would still be untested.

You need to have a viable product with a significant following that you can sell now, not convince telly folk to throw money at created something.

[King Pitcos]

Plus there's not a fucking hope of a decent channel broadcasting old (or new) ROH footage anyway. It'd be another small wrestling show buried on an obscure station in the arse end of Sky.

[cokeorpepsi]

You have to consider if there is even an audience for it, to do this show I'm expecting it would either tour or be shown in one arena each time. Where will the paying fans come from and will they be willing to travel? Wrestling in this country doesn't exactly get football style dedicated fans or travelling ones for that matter. Surely such a show also would not suceed without Ex or current WWE/F stars in it to draw people in? Wrestling stars in Britain are just seen as 'ordinary' people by non wrestling fans. You'd need a big name behind it, like Hogan, and then you'd need those wrestlers to hit the pop culuture be on TV shows, films, music all sorts of media. It's a nice idea but seems to be hindered by as the aforementioned lack of money and audience.

 

Furthermore what would WWE have to gain in starting another promotion here? They make more than enough money with their USA operation combined with tours, if anything they'd be taking hits year after year. The UK isn't the size of america, while here you can drive the length of the country in almost a day, USA is huuge.

[Crowdpuller]

I honestly believe there is no chance of British wrestling getting on a serious TV programme again. Not while WWE is still active. Why would BBC, ITV etc want to show an inferior product to something being shown on Sky Sports? It's not going to happen.

 

Well if your using that way of thinking how about them showing BDO darts, when sky have the pdc? or how channel 4 showing freesports or KO Sports? Why would itv 4 show btcc when the bbc have f1?

[Super Cena]

Instead of doing this on a UK-level, there's the possibility that it could be done as a European promotion. The different countries would be the equivalent to what the States are to the WWE. Even if you based it in Britain for half of the time and the other half you toured around the different European countries?

 

Sure you'd need more money to get it off the ground, but an investor would rather buy a million pound mansion than a hundred pound shed. Most Europeans speak English well enough as it is, but obviously commentary wouldn't be a problem when editing for the other countries.

 

*Arm-chair businessman head on* - A weekly one hour television show with four PPV's per year. Three nights per week I'd do All-Star style house shows, no footage just trying to make as much from the live gates and merchandise to the kids at the interval. Try and get some cross-over stars and do whatever it took to get mainstream attention, even trying to get some of the guys onto talk shows etc.

 

As important a factor as any, aesthetically it would have to look the absolute mutt's nuts.

[mdh85]

I've said this before, but the only chance of a British Wrestling show on mainstream TV in the current climate would be an ITV self-produced show for Saturday nights, filmed either in a studio or a studio-style set up in the same arena each week. Think Gladiators in terms of production style, tone, target audience etc. Big, daft, simple characters for families to enjoy together. Get them in the tabloid media and you're sorted.

 

No independant promoter is ever going to strike a deal with a terrestrial channel. The kind of venues they run would look awful on big-time television. That alone kills the idea dead.

[cokeorpepsi]

An investor would rather invest a million into a mansion than a shed? What exactly is your point? They'd be no guarantee at all that even a Euro production would draw that type of money

[aaron]

Just need some way of getting members of the public to phone up and vote... those shows seem to be loved by the station and sheeple alike

 

[Super Cena]

An investor would rather invest a million into a mansion than a shed? What exactly is your point? They'd be no guarantee at all that even a Euro production would draw that type of money

 

That if it cost

[mdh85]

Instead of doing this on a UK-level, there's the possibility that it could be done as a European promotion. The different countries would be the equivalent to what the States are to the WWE. Even if you based it in Britain for half of the time and the other half you toured around the different European countries?

 

This is a horrible idea. There are enormous cultural differences between the UK and the various regions of mainland europe. The language barriers are significant - aside from the production headaches of hiring decent commentators in every language you wish to broadcast in, all your promos are going to have to be subtitled. Creating characters people can relate to when they can't even understand what they are saying is going to be a problem. There's a reason WWE hires very few wrestlers who don't speak English. Aside from that, a simple farmer in the countryside of the south of France is going to relate to characters differently to an Essex wideboy, or a German factory worker, or an art dealer sipping wine in Venice. Who the hell is your target audience???

 

WWE can cross these barriers because it is so big, American and "Hollywood". That culture has colonised the entire world. A start-up European promotion looking for big-time TV deals wouldn't be able to do so nearly as easily.

 

You talk about "trying to create crossover stars" like its that easy. WWE can't even do it properly these days. Why are TV companies going to take you seriously enough to offer you slots on chat-shows? Especially if your main-eventers only speak German. Or they're German chat shows and your main-eventers only speak English?

 

How is it going to "look the mutts nuts"? Are you going to fill large stadiums? How? 'Cos otherwise its going to look like some people play-wrestling in a leisure-centre.

[Super Cena]

^ mdh85, thanks for the reply.

 

The idea I had in mind was to create a promotion that is as close to WWE/WCW/TNA as possible. You make a fine point about WWE being "Hollywood" - that's the way you would have to go here as well. I don't think that the language barrier would be as big a problem as you think. Japanese and Mexican wrestling is fairly popular (relatively speaking) over here and that's done without any over-dubbing on the commentary or subtitles. It would be of little cost and effort to hire a commentator or two to call a show anyway.

 

Whatever we may say, it's not going to happen anyway. If there was money to be made from anything like this then Vince would have created a British or European-specific brand already. UFC has 90+ percent of the MMA market share and WWE has 90+ percent of the wrestling market share, it will take something near-miraculous to create a British wrestling show that TV execs or the public would take seriously.

 

My Nazi-mid carder heel could go on the German chat shows, I've got that one sussed. And how could a simple French farmer not relate to Cow Azaki, the curtain jerking half-French/half-Japanese farmer?

[King Pitcos]

Japanese and Mexican wrestling is fairly popular (relatively speaking) over here

False.